mike petraglia

Trags Bag: Life is a lot harder for Celtics than Bruins

I present the Bruins and Celtics as a case study. The Bruins have been re-energized this week by their moves at the trade deadline. The Celtics are limping to the finish, hoping to flip the right switch in two weeks.

Bruins coach Claude Julien was laughing and cracking jokes. B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli had bags under his eyes but a smile on his face.

And the Bruins had a new lease on life.

Future Hall of Famer Jaromir Jagr was acquired a day before the trade deadline while potentially useful pieces like forward Kaspars Daugavins and defenseman Wade Redden were added.

Julien was asked what his thoughts were when Peter Chiarelli told him the team had acquired Jaromir Jagr and what Jagr brings to the team.

“I asked him if it was really a done deal ... and I wouldn’t believe it until it was publicized on TV [laughs]. No, I think he’s a great, great addition. This is a guy that can certainly help our hockey club in many different ways.”

Indeed, Jagr had five shots and a fluke goal -- the only goal -- in Thursday’s 1-0 win over the Devils in his Boston debut.

This is a Bruins team expected to compete for a Stanley Cup. After some very stale play in the week and a half leading up to Wednesday’s deadline, it’s a team that needed a new shot of energy.

Heck, Jagr wasn’t even in town hours after the deal on Tuesday and the Bruins went out and fired 50 shots on goal. Getting a future Hall of Fame forward on your roster will do that.

Mission accomplished by Chiarelli.

“[This] was the end of the most difficult trade period I’ve been a part of in my time in hockey,” Chiarelli said. “Knew that going into it, probably just from the tightness of standings and just the compression that resulted in a shortage of players. There’s other things that contributed to the shortage, but it was mainly that, with a lot of teams in contention.”

Chiarelli said a lot of the same things this week that his Celtics counterpart Danny Ainge could say about Doc Rivers.

“We’re a well-coached team and we defend well, and we’re going to improve our offense,” Chiarelli said. “You see a player like Patrice [Bergeron] go down and there’s no way I’m going to replace him. There wasn’t that caliber of player, so I’m not going to go around chasing it all day. I know our guys. You’ve seen across the league, teams have picked up the rest of them when they have injuries, and I would expect us to do the same.

“We added a younger player, [Daugavins. We’re adding the older players. They’ve had experience. Jaromir is one. Wade has been to the finals and the conference finals. He’s got playoff experience. I don’t anticipate any issues there, but I do try to project how it will affect it.”

Ainge certainly did his best to do the same with fewer pieces to work with -- many fewer.

Unlike the NHL, there is no serious player development system in the NBA. Yes, there is the D-League, but it hardly promotes the long-term development of players in an organization the way hockey, or for that matter, baseball does.

And thanks to the early departures of players in the NCAA, the draft doesn’t exactly have the same impact that it did even 10 years ago. If you’re not in the NBA lottery, or on the perimeter of it, you really don’t expect too much.

Jared Sullinger was a pleasant surprise for the Celtics this year, but even then, at No. 21, he was a risk, as we all found out in January when he went down for the season with a back issue that required surgery.

Point is, it’s a lot harder for Ainge. The running joke this week is that the Celtics have themselves quite a team on the bench that would fare well in China since that’s where spare parts Shavlik Randolph, Terrence Williams and D.J. White all played before being picked up by the Celtics. Jordan Crawford was Ainge’s biggest (and only) deal at the trade deadline, and it was for a player (Leandro Barbosa, ACL) already out for the season.

Could they/should they have signed free agent big man Kenyon Martin to 10-day contract on a flier? Probably.

Even though the Bruins have lost the likes of Chris Kelly, Adam McQuaid and now Patrice Bergeron, they have plenty of depth to fill in the holes without making major moves in desperation. The Bruins made their moves to add to a roster that is already championship-caliber.

The Celtics are trying their best to hang on while Rajon Rondo begins his rehab from ACL surgery by -- in the words of Doc Rivers -- “limping around” and shooting with the Harlem Globetrotters before games. Kevin Garnett may return this weekend from a two-week sabbatical forced by bone spurs and inflammation around his left ankle.

The Celtics’ fortunes weight much more heavily on fewer players who are older and close to breaking down.

The Bruins brought in a 41-year-old veteran in Jagr who won Stanley Cups his first two seasons in the NHL at the age of 18 and 19. On Thursday morning at his first skate, Jagr made jokes about how he wasn’t 25 anymore.

I asked him what it’s like to be in a position to help the younger players.

“You can always learn,” Jagr told me. “No matter how old you are, you can always learn. If someone thinks they know everything when he’s 25, he’s lying to himself or he’s dumb. So, you can always learn and I’m here to teach the guys and tell them what I have to go through and make their hockey life easier.”

But here’s the kicker: Jagr was brought in to be a tutor and an extra -- albeit valuable -- part on a team expecting to compete for a title.

Garnett is the 36-year-old heartbeat of the Celtics. With him, they will go down with a fight of a champion. But without him or if he’s significantly injured, the Celtics are going down with a whimper, whether or not it’s the Miami Heat.

This might be the last stand for 41-year-old Jaromir Jagr on a Stanley Cup contender, much the same way it was for Mark Recchi in 2011. But like Recchi, you don’t get the feeling -- yet -- that the Bruins' fortunes rest on his shoulders alone.

You might also like...

FOXBORO — WEEI.com’s Mike Petraglia and Chris Price discuss the return of LeGarrette Blount to Patriots training camp on Saturday, the first day of full pads practice for the defending Super Bowl champions.

Dickerson and Price discuss the RB position and who will get a majority of the workload. They also talk about missing Revis and the CB position. The boys also get into more Deflategate discussions with callers.

Dickerson and Price are live from Fenway today and kick off NFL Sunday discussing some of the events at Pats training camp this week. Then they get into the court battle between Brady and Goodell and where we go from here? The guys give their predictions on just how many games Brady will in fact sit out. They get into the Chris Mortenson situation after he backed out of the D&C interview. Finally, Trags (Mike Petraglia) of WEEI.com joins the boys live from training camp.

How long will this rebuild take? How much money will it take to keep Bae Crowder? Are Draft Picks even worth anything? With the Danny Ainge not landing any big names in the draft, and unable to lure any big names in free agency, Sam and Ben discussed if the Celtics are doomed moving forward.

Joe and Dave are joined by Pedro who was at the game and had his number 45 retired by the Red Sox in a very touching pregame ceremony. Pedro talks about going into the Hall of Fame, his time in Boston and love for the game of baseball.

The awesomely knowledgeable Fluto Shinzawa calls DJ, Naoko and Pete to talk about his thoughts on the future of the B's. He discusses his column from earlier this week on Cam Neely wanting to give Claude the ax earlier in the season but not getting the ok. Fluto shares his thoughts on Chiarelli's firing, the future for Claude and where the Bruins should go from here. He also gives his opinion on potential moves the team can make, who would fit in here, his thoughts on the NHL playoffs so far and more.

In the final hour of the "midseason finale" as DJ likes to call it, the crew discuss more about the future of the Bruins franchise, the possible power struggle in the front office and who should be the head coach going forward. They talk to intelligent and talented Fluto Shinzawa about all of these thing and more in an excellent interview, and finally, DJ says THANK YOU!

Intern extraordinaire Lucy joins Jerry once again to discuss the most vexing questions in the history of mankind: can men and women coexist? What are the differences between how men and women think? And how mean can women really be?

If you play Fantasy Football then you know there are several “Elephants in the Room!” And nobody is talking about them. Are they afraid? We’re not! The Dallas Running game, Leveon Bell, Demarco Murray & Ryan Matthews in the Philly backfield, the Saints offense and so much more. Right here, WEEI’s own Jim Hackett and Pete Davidson cover all of the main “Elephants in the Room” to help you get the edge for your upcoming drafts. Enjoy!